A judge has now ordered the commission to re-open her case.

A judge has ordered the P.E.I. Human Rights Commission to revisit the complaint of a woman who says she is the victim of discrimination by provincial social assistance officials.

Debra Kelly’s complaint, that she is being denied her full share of social assistance, dates back to 2003. Child support for her two children is considered part of Kelly’s income, so, she says, her welfare has been cut to a few hundred dollars a month.

The CBC news story does not specify the type of discrimination she alleges she suffered at the hands of social assistance authorities, and it’s not obvious from the facts reported. I guess the CBC doesn’t think its readers need to concern themselves with such minor details.

A search of the PEI HRC website turns up nothing on the Kelly case.

One would think the executive director of PEI’s HRC would disagree with the decision. His agency examined and dismissed Ms Kelly’s complaint, not once, but twice. One would think he’d take the view that his investigators gave her complaint careful consideration and found it lacking for good reason.

One would be wrong.

“I think it’s a fine decision,” said commission executive director David Larter.

“I’ll be asking the chairperson to convene a panel hearing in order to have the complaint, and the issues that arose from the complaint, be heard.”

That will do wonders for office morale.

THE SIGHT — beautiful beyond words — of Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean holding a bloody piece of raw seal heart in her viceregal mouth has convinced me to abandon my long-held republican beliefs and half-heartedly embrace the monarchy.
[…]
I had already started to think we should move slowly — and politely — away from the Royal Family while maintaining the formal structure of a constitutional monarchy.

Then, on Tuesday, I awoke to read about Ms. Jean, our head of state, and her visit to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, where she helped butcher a seal with an ulu, the traditional knife of Inuit women, then ate the raw flesh of the creature’s heart.

She pronounced it delicious — which is likely a white lie — and I became a monarchist.

Our head of state eats raw seal meat. Take that, European Union parliamentarians.

On the other hand, it’s obvious that one Chronicle-Herald headline-writer strongly disagrees with Mr Maher.

Animal rights groups outraged by Governor General ‘s seal antics

“Antics”?

You can be forgiven if you can’t keep track of who’s running for the Green party.

The party has been grappling with candidates pulling out at the last minute in many ridings. These include:

•Guysborough-Sheet Harbour. The party’s website recently listed Tony Larue as the candidate, but the official list released Tuesday by Elections Nova Scotia names Amy Florian.

• Halifax Chebucto. Jeff Herbert dropped out, and was replaced by Chris Hanlon.

•Hants East. Michael Hartlen withdrew as the candidate. Emerich Winkler appears on the official list.

•Preston. The original candidate was David Smith, replaced by Sarah Densmore.

• Richmond. John Percy has taken over from Trina MacDonald.

N.S. Green leader Ryan Watson admits that his party has a problem.

“We have to build the organizational strength and continuity so that we can hit the ground running next time.”

This time, they’re just hitting the ground.

“The existential threat faced by Israel on a daily basis is ultimately a threat to the broader Western civilization,” said Jason Kenney, explaining the staunchly pro-Israel positions of his government, led by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“It’s a threat that comes from profoundly undemocratic forces that don’t have the same conception of human dignity or freedom, and which abuse Israel as a kind of representative of the broader West and Western liberal-democratic values,” said Kenney. “I also very acutely understand the nature of the new anti-Semitism, and I think it’s even more dangerous than the old European anti-Semitism.”

Jason Kenney for Prime Minister.

h/t: Europe News

Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says Rodney MacDonald and his Tories aren’t the competition in next month’s provincial election.

“It seems apparent that this is a two-way race between the Liberals and the NDP,” Mr. Ignatieff said Sunday afternoon after a rally of about 300 party faithful at the Dartmouth Sportsplex.

“So it’s perhaps not relevant to talk about the Conservatives.”

He said it is obvious provincial Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil is the one with momentum.

“You just look at the guy and you think he’s a safe pair of hands. He could be the premier of this province,” Mr. Ignatieff said. “It’s just as clear as day.”

Well, I’m convinced.

The CBC, by contrast, runs a puff piece so sycophantic that, as one commenter put it, it “sounds like it was written by Ignatieff’s mom”. The headline is enough to give it away.

Ignatieff gives N.S. Liberals much needed boost at rally

Neither news story answers the question every Nova Scotian wants to know: Did Iggy need a GPS to find his way to Dartmouth?

N.S. NDP plans to reduce rates of disease

Nova Scotia’s NDP has developed a plan it hopes would help reduce the rates of disease in the province, including cancer and diabetes.

Party leader Darrell Dexter says Nova Scotians have some of the worst chronic disease rates in the country, but he believes that trend can be stopped.

If elected on June 9th, Dexter says an NDP government would create a task force that would identify ways to help lower the rates of acute and chronic illnesses in the province.

The NDP is also promising to establish a council made up of representatives from health advocacy groups and the government that would award so-called healthy living grants.

No doubt about it: If the NDP is elected, disease in Nova Scotia will be talked to death.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, not set to open until 2012, is already running a deficit.

The latest corporate report for the museum, currently under construction in Winnipeg, indicates a $5.2-million shortfall in its operating budget.

Officials told CBC News the original budget was flawed because the structure is the first national museum to be built in a generation — and the first ever to be built outside of Ottawa — so there is a steep learning curve in terms of anticipated expenses.

The corporate report suggests the initial figures did not properly adjust for inflation and taxes.

Of course a government-financed project would overlook taxes. And it’s a sure bet that the final deficit will be far more than the $5 million just announced.

Your tax dollars at “work”.

Williams says phone call led to tentative deal with nurses

Newfoundland and Labrador’s premier said Wednesday it was his late-evening phone call that broke the deadlock between negotiators for the province and the nurses union that led to a tentative agreement to keep nurses on the job.

Only Danny Williams could spin a potentially disastrous nurses’ strike averted at the last minute by costly wage increases as a personal victory.

The deal was reached only two hours before nurses were scheduled to set up picket lines around hospitals and clinics.  Final details of the deal have not been released, but it is known that the government’s “final” offer included a 21.5 percent wage hike over four years, increases in starting and top salary scales, and changes in bonus payment policies wanted by the nurses.

She has multiple sclerosis and needs a scooter to move around.  Her husband, SMCC corrections officer William McSwain, has no physical disabilities.

“I won,” she said. “They discriminated against me because of whom I’m married to. It’s like winning the lottery.”

In a written ruling released March 16, an adjudicator found the denial of snow removal to McSwain was based on marital status, which is prohibited under the NWT Human Rights Act.
[…]
Even though she won, McSwain said she may end up with nothing but about $2,000 in legal fees repaid for her trouble.
[…]
McSwain said she went to the Human Rights Commission as a matter of principle.

“The government changed a program to disqualify me,” she said.

That much appears to be true.  For years, SMCC inmates had removed snow at homes where disabled persons lived with able-bodied spouses or other relatives.  However, when Ms McSwain became the first person on the programme married to an SMCC corrections officer, the first set of written rules came into existence with the apparent purpose of disqualifying her.

But why did it take so long for the decision to be rendered?   The complaint was lodged on 20 September 2006, but the hearing did not take place until 10-11 September 2008, and the written decision not released until March 2009.  And it’s not over yet.  Further hearings must be held and decisions reached regarding what “remedy” and allocation of costs are deemed appropriate.

Gluttons for punishment can read the full text of the ruling here as a badly formatted pdf document.

Earlier this year, the NWT HRC ordered payments to complainants who suffered hurt feelings.

h/t: The Blog of Walker

The signs ask people to elect Mr. Morash and say in small red lettering across the bottom that Robert Stafford is his official agent.

Elections Nova Scotia said Mr. Morash is not the official candidate yet and that means he has no official agent, but what he has done does not violate the Elections Act.

Morash says he’s the only one running for the nomination and, anyway, the party’s website already shows him as their guy.

The nomination meeting will finally take place on Monday and, indeed, it looks like Morash is a shoo-in: The meeting will convene at his campaign headquarters.

Liberal leader Stephen McNeil groveled in apology, assuring everyone that such exposure of events on the public record is intolerable (or something like that).

The name of the Liberal Party worker who sent the photos to CBC has never been made public—until now. Atlantic Canada Frank has the leak news.

Fingerprints on her flapdoodles
By Dee Kupp

I have it on impeccable authority that Stephen McNeil’s liberal caucus was in complete revolt mode over the Lenore Zann Flapdoodle Scandal (Frank 557). And not over the handling of the ill-advised affair, but the fact that it even happened in the first place.
[…]
To the provincial caucus members there just didn’t seem a point to sending any images of Lenore Zann to anybody.

Why? They couldn’t see any point to it, and apparently neither could CBC-TV’s political reporter Paul Withers and his bosses.
[…]
But there was a point.

The point was, I’m told, that Dale Palmeter is still mad that they don’t raise the gay flag in Truro.

Palmeter, the 45-year-old paid political sidekick to Kings-Hants MP Scott Brison, is technicalIy the “volunteer” Stephen McNeil referred to when he said somebody had been reprimanded over the political embarrassment caused by the added exposure of Lenore’s flapdoodles.
[...]
The logic behind the flapdoodle leak, I’m told, was that if these people are too prudish to even raise the gay flag, just wait until they see Lenore Zanri removing her goodself from a communal shower full of naked women on a lesbo television show.
[…]
According to sources, the Internet images were sent to Withers by Dale with the knowledge and support of campaign chairman Chris Macinnes.

That makes more sense than the absurd claim that the photos were an attempt to “smear” Lenore Zann. According to Frank’s source, the photos were sent by a long-time, (formerly) respected Liberal operative for the purpose of impelling the Liberals to adopt his agenda—and with the connivance of high-level party apparatchiks.

If that was the intention, the scheme backfired magnificently. It sounds like Mr McNeil’s apology to Lenore Zann missed the point. Some Liberal operatives owe both her and their own party an apology for trying to use her to bolster their side in an internal party debate.

The story appears in the print edition of Atlantic Canada Frank issue 558 (dated 12 May) but not online, so there is no link to the full text.

Mr Dexter has a series of brainstorms to alleviate recurrent closures of emergency rooms at Nova Scotia hospitals:  Hire an “expert” advisor/co-ordinator to act as health-care czar, “consult” people affected by lack of medical services, and commit a potentially unlimited quantity of cash.

No government anywhere in Canada has ever tried any of that.  Dexter must be a genius.

Leader Darrell Dexter said if he becomes premier, he will hire an adviser who will work to improve access to emergency care.

“This person will actually be in charge of co-ordinating resources right across the province to help keep emergency rooms open rather than what we have done over the last four years, which is closing emergency rooms,” he told reporters at a news conference at the NDP headquarters in Halifax.

One of the chief reasons emergency rooms have been closed is staff shortages, but Mr. Dexter said the adviser would be able to “engage the pool of health care professionals that exists right across the province.”

Mr. Dexter said there are also doctors outside of Nova Scotia who may want to come here.

The man is a true visionary.

The NDP leader said it may take money and other incentives to attract doctors to the province and says that is not included in the party’s $2.3-million plan.

Inevitably, a killjoy Conservative candidate pipes up.

Tory candidate George Jordan criticized the NDP for “hiring a planner to make a plan.”

He said the province needs front-line workers more than another bureaucrat.

Mr Jordan is not foolish enough to promise anything.

When pressed for the Tory plan, the Dartmouth South-Portland Valley candidate said the province has a proven track record.

“We’ve worked very hard to get waiting times cut down. I’ve just said we’re interested in providing more medical care to the patients of this province.

The Tories may have “worked very hard” to reduce waiting times, but there is no evidence they’ve had any success.  And if “interest” were enough to provide medical services, we wouldn’t need politicians making promises that everyone knows they can’t keep.

We’ve created more positions at the Dalhousie medical schools.”

On the other hand, creating more places in medical school is the only policy mentioned in the entire news story that affords a reasonable hope of improving health care.  The problem for the politicians is that any improvement it brings will not be seen during the life of the next government.

Effective March 1, 2009, Warren Kinsella is a registered lobbyist with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador as part of a nation-wide effect to spark up some kind of law suit against Big Tobacco.

Danny Williams must be desperate.

Why do I have to find out about this from Kitchener-Waterloo resident Steve Janke?

Scott Brison has sent out a ten-percenter. Nothing wrong with that. It’s all legal. All the parties do it. Get over it.

In this case, the pamphlet makes the obligatory jab at Stephen Harper, then asks the recipient to fill in a survey.

Fortunately, I can respond to Mr Brison without actually getting his little pamphlet.

[Y]ou don’t need to have received the ten-percenter to respond. Instead, you can go to this web page:

http://feedback.liberal.ca/buying

Unfortunately, the online survey form has no space for comments.

My fellow Brison constituent at Wolfville Watch is equally annoyed.

In his latest response, university president Brian MacArthur maintains the policy is legal and that the dispute is more complicated than its opponents make it out to be.

[T]he [N.B. Human Rights] code recognizes that as important as it is to avoid limiting opportunities for individuals based on particular characteristics, there are legitimate and natural occasions when this is not possible, and such are not necessarily a violation of a person’s rights.

In support, Dr MacArthur cites the Supreme Court’s vindication of Trinity Western University (TWU), which went to court after the British Columbia College of Teachers refused to approve its teacher education programme, claiming that the university discriminated against homosexuals.

The Justices of the Supreme Court ruled in favour of TWU, observing that a tension can exist in law between rights and not be in violation of the law. They stated: “Any potential conflict between religious freedoms and equality rights should be resolved through the proper delineation of the rights and values involved. Properly defining the scope of the rights avoids a conflict in this case. Neither freedom of religion nor the guarantee against discrimination based on sexual orientation is absolute.”
[…]
[I]it should be made clear that the accusation made against ABU is really based on a clash of views, not human rights. The Supreme Court decision recognizes that so long as appropriate boundaries are respected in the exercise of rights, rights can be balanced. Canadian citizens and faith communities are free to hold a traditional view of marriage and to express their belief, as are those with other views.

He concludes on an idealistic note.

A truly just society is not created by forcing everyone to accept the same view. In our pluralistic nation, differing views should be able to be voiced and expressed with equal conviction without fear of reprisal in funding or other ways.

Some vehemently disagree with that sentiment. The first comment posted at the Times & Transcript calls Dr MacArthur’s column “a whitewash” and the Supreme Court decision in the TWU case a “loophole that allows for exclusion”.

Atlantic Baptist University is affiliated with the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches, which also plays a role in governing Acadia University and Acadia Divinity School.

The current guidebook for Canadian newcomers includes two pages on environmental stewardship and barely a mention of the Canadian military — and that has Jason Kenney hopping mad.

Kenney, the Conservative minister of citizenship and immigration, has ordered an overhaul of the 12-year-old citizenship test and accompanying educational material.
[…]
As Kenney acerbically characterizes it, the booklet includes two pages “on recycling,” but “not one single sentence on Canadian military history.”

That will infuriate the Greenies.

The Harper government was criticized yesterday over its spending for Canada Day celebrations, but it argued that there was nothing unusual about its decision to give Quebec 85% of the funds available for committees organizing festivities in 2008.

“The reality is that we have increased funding to support Canadian festivals across this country, including Canada Day, to celebrate Canada,” Heritage Minister James Moore said in the House of Commons. “We are using this money effectively to support festivals and events across this country that support the birthday of this country…. We are doing our job. We are making sure that Canada is celebrated and celebrated with honour.”

Honour among thieves?

Premier Danny Williams expropriated AbitibiBowater’s (TSX:ABH) resource rights and assets in central Newfoundland as a punitive measure for the company’s decision to close a paper mill, the newsprint giant alleged in a free trade challenge Thursday.

The Montreal-based company filed a notice of intent under the North American Free Trade Agreement accusing the Newfoundland and Labrador government of taking a “blatantly discriminatory” action when it passed legislation to expropriate its hydroelectric assets, and water and timber rights in Grand Falls-Windsor.

“The act simply singled out one such company for retaliatory expropriation, and dressed up its punitive actions with populist rhetoric designed to loosely suggest (but not really reflect) rational public policy goals,” the 40-page notice says.

“The real motivation, and the real consequence of the act, was simple. It was to kick a single foreign investor out of the province because that investor had angered premier Williams and some of his constituents.”

AbitibiBowater is seeking over $300 million in compensation for its expropriated assets and rights, an amount that Newfoundland and Labrador rejects as excessive.

Because NAFTA is an international agreement, the federal government is now dragged into a legal action because of a decision made unilaterally by a provincial government. That the feds almost certainly disagree with the expropriation only compounds the irony. (As far as I know, the federal government has not officially expressed an opinion.)

What if Ottawa were to pay off AbitibiBowater and then dock Newfoundland and Labrador an equivalent amount in equalisation payments or other federal transfers? Premier Danny Williams would no doubt take the opportunity to hit the roof yet again.

The polygamy trial will be adjourned while the court conducts a very interesting examination of Mr Blackmore’s personal finances. The Vancouver Sun’s Daphne Bramham reports:

Blackmore will have to present considerable evidence about his financial circumstances before a judge will agree to legal funding.

It should provide a fascinating inside view of how a man like Blackmore is able — or not — to support 20 or more wives and the 119 children he has fathered.

It should also provide some explanation of how Blackmore went from being one of the richest men in the Creston Valley to a man without means following his ex-communication.

The financial demise of his privately held companies that were involved in logging, milling, trucking, ranching and farming appears to have tracked his fall from grace in the church.

Meanwhile, Blackmore’s co-defendant James Oler will be allowed to travel to Utah during the adjournment.

He has to post a cash deposit of $40,000, which will be returned when he again surrenders his passport April 28th.

For $40,000, Mr Oler might decide he’d rather remain a free man south of the border.

The mayor of Saint John is urging the provincial government to offer free tuition as a way to spur on a baby boom after the latest demographic portrait of the southern city shows it is not growing very quickly.
[…]
“When I taught high school three years ago, most people were saying they weren’t going to have children because they couldn’t afford to educate them,” Court said.

I’ve heard a lot of excuses reasons not to have children, but I must admit that’s a new one on me. Haven’t New Brunswick parents heard of student loans?

Free post-secondary education would be the responsibility of the province, not the city—a convenient way to shift the blame for Saint John’s problems off the mayor’s desk.

Mayor Court’s parting shot is a puzzler.

“We’re typically Canadian born, white people, speak English. I mean that’s what Saint John looks like,” he said.

Very observant.